Throughout his long career, Neal Morse has often been a musical collaborator, usually with some of the greatest prog musicians across the world. This time, Morse has brought that collaborative spirit closer to home. The new album by Neal Morse & The Resonance – entitled No Hill For A Climber will be released 8th November via InsideOutMusic, with the title taken from a resonant line in Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead.
It all came about back in 2023, as Morse explained: “I started thinking about what I was going to do in 2024, and my wife suggested that I should think about doing something with the amazingly talented younger guys that we have here locally – like Chris Riley, Andre Madatian and Philip Martin. I knew just how good they were from playing with them at our Christmas concerts and other events.”
These local musicians were supplemented by Joe Ganzelli (drums) and Johnny Bisaha, who performs much of the lead vocal work, “While composing No Hill For A Climber, I was hearing a lot of higher range vocals,” Morse noted, “So I contacted Johnny Bisaha, who came over, listened to the music. loved it and started singing for me. And I immediately thought, ‘Oh man, he’s the guy!’”.
Described as “one of the most unique sounding tracks on the album” the second single release is ‘Thief’ out now digitally with a video that you can check out here at
“‘Thief‘ had an interesting writing process,” Morse noted. “I woke up from a very deep afternoon nap with this idea of people singing ‘thief’ in these high voices and then saying stuff in between. It was really weird. But I thought it might be cool. So I wrote the beginning part and then had no idea where to go. I phoned Chris Riley who lives close by and he came over and he had the idea to put in the kind of evil sounding middle section. The drum beat has a kind of hip-hop feel which was not my idea at all. I had written it with a swing feel, and when Joe Ganzelli came in to do a drum track on it, that was his idea! I think it really makes the song special and different.”.
It follows the track ‘All The Rage’ launched as a single with a brand new video last month that you can still check out here at RAMzine.
“’All the Rage’ was the second track that I recorded with the guys,” Morse recalled. “ I had written it with them in mind and we tracked it pretty quickly. We wanted more of a live feel so we did quite a bit of it without a click track, which became a bit of a challenge for me during the piano solo section! I am super happy with the way the song came out and I really feel like you can hear the energy of the band in the track!”
No Hill For A Climber will be available as limited 2CD digipak (including a second disc of instrumentals), standard CD jewel case, gatefold 2LP & as a digital Album. It can be ordered here.
Faithful to any Neal Morse progressive rock album, No Hill For A Climber features two epics (the 28 minute ‘No Hill For A Climber’ and ‘Eternity In Your Eyes’, that clocks in at 22 minutes) as well as three shorter songs: ‘Ever Interceding’, ‘All The Rage’ and ‘Thief’. The latter, Morse admits, is his current favorite: “It’s so different… it’s in all these different sections, and I’m really happy with the way each part has come out. It’s pretty crazy. There’s even a really cool King Crimson-style instrumental bit in the middle that Chris Riley originally came up with at the Radiant School a couple of years ago.”
For all of these reasons, Morse believes that the whole album is unique, but notes that “if I was going to compare its structure to an album I’ve done in the past, it might be along the lines of Bridge Across Forever or Spock’s Beard’s V; it’s not that it sounds at all like those albums, it’s just structurally similar. It has voices and playing styles and soundscapes that many people will have never heard before! Everyone you work with changes you a little bit, so even I sound a little different on this one, but I hope that everyone will love it!”
